Tag Archives: paper

finished wreath

Paper Wreath – Color for the Winter Blahs

craft, Creativity, DIY, Homemade, How to, , , , , , , , ,

finished wreath

Good Afternoon!

I hope everyone survived their holidays. I had a lovely month of December, but as some may have noticed, I only made it to December 16th with our advent. I just ran out of energy and time to keep up with the daily projects and make Christmas presents for my family. I still have the projects in my workbook, so you will probably see them at some point in the future.

Winter has finally hit our area and we have real snow. I like the white better than the blah of brown and gray, but I really needed a spot of color in my house to brighten up my day, so my new spring wreath was born.

Materials:

  • 6″ cardboard circle
  • wire for the wreath hanger
  • paper cutter
  • scrapbook paper
  • hot glue gun and glue sticks

6 inch cardboard circle

First, cut out your 6″ cardboard circle. My circle cutter only goes up to 5 1/2″ so, I added about a half inch to the outside of the mark and cut there with scissors.

attach wire hanger

Next, use some floral wire to make the hanger, poke it through the cardboard and leave the long ends to be inside the wreath where they won’t be seen.

cutting scrapbook paper into squares

Then, cutting the scrapbook paper. The cones of the flower wreath are made up of 4″ pieces of scrapbook paper. For easy accounting:

  • 24 – 4″ pieces dark color
  • 24 – 4″ pieces medium color
  • 24 – 4″ pieces light color
  • 15 – 3″ pieces medium color (optional)
  • 15 – 3″ pieces light color (optional)
  • 6 – 2″ pieces yellow

This came out to 6 sheets of 8 1/2″ x 11″ each of the dark, medium, and light colors and one sheet of yellow.

roll cones around object to get curve started

It makes rolling the cones much easier if you start the curve before you begin gluing. I took my ring mandrel and wrapped my squares of paper around it to get the curve started. You could use anything for this, a bottle of glue would work, just as an example.

how to roll the cones

Then, you add a little hot glue to one corner of the paper.

hold cone after gluing for a few seconds

Finally, you curl the opposite corner over the glue to make a cone and hold for a few seconds for the glue to set.

Pro for Hot Glue – It dries very quickly

Con for Hot Glue – It is VERY hot and you end up with strings to clean up

I made all of my cones at one time then started attaching them to the wreath. They stack neatly together to save space and it was a lot of fun to quickly put the wreath together after all the prep work.

put glue on very tip of the back side of the cone

For attaching the cones to the cardboard, you want a tiny bit of hot glue on the narrow tip of the cone.

start gluing tips of cones to edge of cardboard circle

Start gluing your cones to the cardboard, keeping the wide ends of the cone touching and the cones perpendicular to the edge of the cardboard. The tips with the glue will not touch each other.

first round of cones in place

Above you can see my first round of the dark color and the mess of hot glue. Don’t worry, no one will see this part once it is finished.

for all further rounds of cones, flatten the bottom of the cone to provide a place for the glue

For the second and all consecutive rings, you will need to flatten the tip of the cone a bit and put the glue on the flat edge. This makes attaching the cone to the cardboard ring much easier.

second round done, starting the third

Above, my second ring of medium color is done and I have started on the third ring with my light color.

third round done

Third ring is done.

fourth round done

Fourth ring in the same light color is done and I am ready to start the yellow ring of the flower center.

yellow center of flower done

With the yellow ring, I ended up having to squeeze a finger through the cone to press the glue down. There is very little space in there for a hand.

3 inch cones glued inside the outer ring of 4 inch cones

This part is optional, but if you did cut the 3″ squares, here is where you glue them inside the 4″ cones. For this wreath, I alternated the light and medium colors and put them inside the outer dark ring color. Using more hot glue, put a dab on the 3″ cone and press to the inside of the 4″ cone.

Finally, there is the clean up of the hot glue strings. This doesn’t take long, but it is definitely a necessary step.

finished wreath

And Voila! A lovely spring wreath to add a pop of color to your home and door.

side view of completed flower wreath

Above you see a side view of the wreath.

red paper cone wreath

Here is the first paper flower wreath I made Tuesday. It is in red tones and I used a 2″ x 12″ strip of yellow paper to make the flower center. I cut a 2″ circle of red paper, glued the yellow spiral to this and then glued it into the center of the flower. I much prefer the look of my new teal version with the center being made of small yellow cones.

Also, you can see in the red toned wreath, I put my 3″ cones in the third ring instead of the first. You can make every wreath different by where you add final touches. You could even put them inside every cone on your wreath and make a really intricate flower.

Have fun and play with color. Let me know how yours turns out!

Happy Crafting,

Kristin

TealCompleted

paper circle ornamnet

Christmas Advent 2015 – Day 10 Paper Circle Ornament

Advent Ornament Countdown, Christmas Ornaments, craft, Creativity, DIY, Homemade, How to, , , , , , , , ,

Day 10 and I am neck deep in crafting supplies. My house is truly a disaster. Maybe my final advent  picture should be of the absolute mess I have made.

Today is a very simple and easy ornament you can do with your kids.

Materials:

  • Scrapbook paper
  • Paper cutter (scissors work just fine too)
  • Tacky glue
  • Ribbon

paper circle ornamnet

I cut strips of paper in varying lengths between 4″ and 7″ long and 1/2″ and 1″ wide and in varying colors, then formed circles and glued the edges together. Then I selected the circles I thought looked best together and glued these together making sure the glued edges where on top of each other. Once they were dry, I tied a ribbon to the top, dabbed a bit of glue on the ribbon knot so that it did not come undone and attached a tree hook.

All done!

This one is so easy I felt I needed to pay a cat tax.

kitty picture

My dopey cat wondering why I will not sit still.

Happy Crafting!

Kristin

napkin rings

Christmas Advent 2015 – Day 7 Napkin Rings

Advent Ornament Countdown, craft, Creativity, DIY, Homemade, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Loryn has been doing lots of entertaining lately and has the most awesome table. It is gigantic and sits our family very well. I decided that for this advent, I would make the table decor for Christmas family dinners. Today I made the napkin rings.

napkin rings

Materials:

  • Scrapbook paper
  • Tacky glue (white glue)
  • Foam sheets
  • Mod Podge
  • Sponge brush
  • Wax paper

I cut strips of scrapbook paper in three different styles to 1 1/2″, 1″, and 1/4″ wide by 7″ long. I used a sponge brush and some watered down tacky glue to glue the papers one on top of the other. I then squeezed these flat between some wax paper and heavy books.

I cut 1 1/2″ by 6″ long strips of the foam sheets and once the paper strips were dry, I used some more watered down tacky glue and the sponge brush to glue them to the foam strips. I again squeezed these flat between my sheets of wax paper and heavy books.

I then trimmed the paper on one end to evenly match up to the foam and left a 1/2″ edge of paper on the other end. I smeared straight tacky glue on the inner side of the leftover edge of paper and a bit on the end of the foam and curled it around the tacky glue bottle (nicely doing double duty here) and glued the ends of the foam/paper strips together, making sure the paper strips lined up, wiping any excess glue away, and ensuring the rings formed good circles.

napkin rings

After the glue was dry, I used another sponge brush and covered the rings with one coat of Mod Podge. I am not too worried about durability and if I need to make more next year, I will gladly do so. This was fun and easy and only took a couple of hours.

I only show five of the rings above as the others were all still drying. I only made a few to start to be sure I liked how they turned out. I also used several colors of foam sheets to add a little more color. (I know the insides of the napkin rings will be hidden by the napkins themselves, but they do spend a lot of time on the table with nothing in them after everyone pulls their napkins out.)

Stay tuned for napkins and other table decorations coming soon!

Happy Crafting,

Kristin

paper fold ornament

Christmas Advent 2015 – Day 5 Paper Ornament

Advent Ornament Countdown, Christmas Ornaments, craft, Creativity, DIY, Homemade, , , , , , , , , ,

Ha Ha! I got both my projects finished today! My project for day 5 is an ornament (Styrofoam base) that I covered with strips of red and green paper, then finished off with some wired silver/multicolor mini-garland.

Materials:

  • Styrofoam ball (3″)
  • Sequins
  • Sequin pins
  • Scrapbook paper
  • Paper cutter
  • Silver/multicolor wired mini-garland (trim ribbon)
  • Small piece of wire
  • Super glue

paper fold ornament

I took the small piece of wire and formed a loop at one end. I stuck the other end through one sequin then stuck the wire into the Styrofoam ball. Then using the super glue, I glued it securely. This gave me somewhere to safe to attach my tree hook at the top of the ball.

My next step was to cut lots of 1/4″ by 2″ strips of green and red paper. In reality, I only used 2″ x 10″ pieces of paper in each color and cut them all into my 1/4″ strips. I then folded these strips in half. I grabbed a sequin pin, put a silver sequin on and then attached the folded paper to the ball with the pin/sequin.

I did seven rows of these, with no particular spacing, just what I thought looked good, and covered about 2/3 of the ball, leaving the top uncovered. Lastly, I took the silver/multicolor wired mini-garland (trim ribbon) and pinned it to the ball in circles to cover the rest of the ball.

Since I had already put in the wire loop for the hook, all I needed to do was add a green tree hook and I was done!

paper fold ornament

I like this one and ended up curling the ends of the paper strips to give the ornament more depth. I think it looks like a Christmas acorn.

Happy crafting,

Kristin

Paper Punch Ornament

Advent Ornament Countdown, Christmas Ornaments, craft, Crafts from the Past, Creativity, DIY, Homemade, How to, , , , , , , , , ,

Okay, I am 2 days late with this post, but you will have to forgive me, between class, a major migraine, and a massive snowstorm, I have been a little bogged down.

In my last post, I used this wonderful paper punch and I just have not been able to resist using it again. This time, I used gift-wrap for the paper cut-outs. I have discussed before my one-time hobby of making temari balls. I have massive amounts of supplies left over from this hobby and I raid it regularly for other projects. For this project, I nabbed a wrapped ball that I had already made. I use stuffing and wrap it with loads of sewing thread. I was a little more proactive this time and added my hanger before I got started adding the paper punch-outs.

Paper ornament with paper punches

I cut out loads of the paper punch-outs and used beading pins and sequins to attach them to the ball. I started at the bottom of the ball and went around in a spiral adding paper punch-outs as I went around and up the ball.

Paper ornament close up

It is a really easy ornament to make and only took me about a 1/2 hour. This does not include the time it took me years ago to make the thread-wrapped ball, but that only took me about 20 minutes at most. You could also use a foam ball for your base as well.

I am really happy with how the ornament turned out.

Happy Crafting!

Kristin

Small photo of paper ornament.

 

3D Origami Snowflake

Advent Ornament Countdown, Christmas Ornaments, Creativity, How to, , , , , , , ,

20131202-203952.jpg

Lynne
The other day I was looking through pages and pages of Google images of origami figures for some new ideas when I saw this terrific dragon. Red Dragon Origami from Papercraft

I was keenly interested in how it was made and I began to search for instructions. I found that the process was called 3D origami and involved folding small rectangles of paper into triangular pieces that could be interlocked to build figures of amazing complexity.
Of course I turned to youtube and began to look for instructional videos. I find that I can learn better by watching than by reading complicated directions. So I will give links to a couple of videos that were very helpful in the process of making these intricate Lego-like pieces. There are many other videos and each one has something different to show. Watch as many as you can.

3D origami tutorial
3D origami tutorial 2

20131202-204014.jpg

I hoped that I could use this folding technique in our Christmas challenge and I found this video on how to make a snowflake with a little less than 50 pieces. It’s a good way to learn how the process works and still have something creative to show for your time. The video is well done, but I found that I did not pay enough attention to the position of the pieces as they were interlocked. The second color is placed differently than the first. If you look closely you will see that how the pieces are shown is how they are attached to the model.
3D origami snowflake

I made my first snowflake using two colors of copy paper as shown in the video to help me understand what I was doing, but I wanted a subtler change of color on my model. I have recently discovered the Copic airbrush system and on my second effort I used that system to achieve the color and effect I wanted. I really like using markers for airbrush painting. It is easy to switch colors quickly and there is very little mess to clean up. Here is a link to a video of the air spray system in action.
Copic airbrush system

I attached a button to the front of the star and then used a light coating of spray adhesive to adhere some glitter for a reflective shine. I used some fishing line to hang the ornament but ribbon or string would work just as well.

I hope you have fun as much fun making these snowflakes as I did and I will post again in four days with another project.

Side view of wreath

2013 Christmas Advent: Paper Wreath

Advent Ornament Countdown, Christmas Ornaments, collections, craft, Creativity, DIY, Homemade, How to, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Happy Holidays!

Hello, and yes we are still alive. We are doing our annual Christmas Advent. This year we are covering Christmas Decorations. I decided to to do a Christmas wreath and have been playing with paper lately and thus my Christmas Paper Wreath was made.

Finished paper wreath

For supplies:

Foam wreath shape, burlap ribbon, scrapbook paper (paper cutter optional), pins, sequins, paper punch (twine and bells optional)

Supplies needed for paper wreath

The paper punch I chose cuts out a 2 1/2″ shape, so I cut my scrapbook paper into 3″ swathes. This I then ran through my paper punch and cut out my florets.

Paper punch

Once I had all my florets, I wrapped the foam wreath with the burlap ribbon. I used pins to hold the burlap in place (I was trying to keep my supplies to a minimum, but you could use hot glue here if you preferred).

Burlap wrapped foam wreath

I attached the hanger and bells at the very end, but realistically, this would have been the best time. It worked just fine adding these at the end of the project, but I could have hidden them better had I tied them around the wreath before adding the florets.

Next, I started attaching the florets. I have to tell you about my error now. I bought large head beading pins for this project and thought they would be large enough that they would hold the florets by themselves. However, once I tried to hold the florets in place with the pins I discovered that I was wrong. I needed something to go between the pinheads and the florets. You could use just about anything, I chose to use silver sequins. I imagine that small beads would also have been lovely.

Once you put the pin through the floret, use your fingers to bend the floret up into a flower cup shape. This is what gives the florets three dimensions.

Attaching florets to wreath

Just keep pinning the florets to the wreath all the way around, being sure to cover the inside and outside of the wreath.  I made sure that none of the florets were flat on the wreath. I would pull up the edges of the nearby florets so that the edges were all up and none were flat.

Here you can see the burlap ribbon under the florets, but once the wreath is complete, you cannot see the burlap from a regular distance away.

Paper Wreath Close Up with Burlap2

I love the way it turned out. It looks great hanging on my front door.

Side view of wreath

Finished paper wreath

Happy crafting!

Kristin

Paper Wreath Close Up CG

Christmas garland made of wrapping paper.

Ornament Advent: Day 23 Christmas Wrap Garland

Advent Ornament Countdown, Christmas Ornaments, craft, Creativity, DIY, Homemade, How to, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

One of the greatest benefits of having a crafting family are how ideas are bounced, re-imaged, and re-shaped among us. I really love the Star Ornaments that Loryn made and I also just love the Chinese Fortune Garland that Cheri made. I decided to do something similar to Loryn’s stars and follow Cheri and make a garland. I am very happy with how it turned out!

Christmas garland made of wrapping paper.

Supplies:

Christmas wrap

Paper punch (I used 2″ seal punch)

Glue stick or pen

Yarn, string, or ribbon

Christmas garland made of Christmas wrap and shaped into a wreath.

I had some really shiny Christmas wrap and also had this 2″ seal paper punch. I used the paper punch to cut around 120 pieces out of the Christmas wrap. I then pulled out some thick crochet thread that is a sort-of soft gold color and is ribbonish (flat and about 1/8″ thick). I spread glue on two cut-outs and glued the crochet thread between the two pieces. You do have to be sparing with the glue as the Christmas wrap is very thin. I left around 1/4″ of the yarn visible between the cut-outs.

Christmas Wrapping Paper Garland

My garland is around 12′ long and looks great on a tree! I think this whole garland took me around 45 minutes to make. The other nice thing about this garland is that once you fold up the shapes, it takes up so little space and stores very well.

Christmas Garland made of wrapping paper.

Happy Holidays and Happy Crafting!

Kristin

Ornament Advent: Day 20 Wrapping Paper Christmas Tree

Advent Ornament Countdown, Christmas Ornaments, craft, DIY, , , , , , , , , , ,
ornament, holiday, Christmas, tree, scrapbook paper
Use scrap pieces of wrapping paper to make this ornament.

Lynne: I liked using scraps of wrapping paper to make my last ornament and I decided I would try to use up more of the pieces I have lying around. I found this tutorial on design and form with these terrific paper ornaments, but I don’t have that precision in my paper-cutting skills. Thus I drew a very loose, cartoon type tree and used that for my pattern.

You will need:

a 6 x 6 inch square piece of paper for the pattern

approximately 10, 6 x 6 inch square pieces of wrapping paper

a glue stick

When you draw the pattern, draw it full size and then fold it in half. This will be easier to do instead of trying to think of how one half of a tree will look. Don’t worry too much about how it looks. You will be surprised how good irregular lines will look in the finished ornament.
wrappingpapertree2

Glue the unprinted sides together and then start gluing to make a stack. Be sure to keep the folded edge straight so everything matches when the ornament is opened. I used a weight for a few minutes to make sure the glue would hold.

I traced around the pattern onto the stack and then began to cut. It seemed that more than three edges were too hard to cut, so cut what you can and then retrace the pattern from what has already been cut. When every edge has been cut, glue the two outside edges together and adjust the 3d figure until it is evenly spaced.

I added glitter and stuck an old hat pin in the top, but feel free to decorate any way you wish. I used a loop of fishing line for a hanger, but these ornaments will stand on their own if you want to use them in a centerpiece.

wrappingpapertree3

Happy Holidays and just one more ornament!

Ornament Advent: Day 18 Fortune Cookie Garland

Advent Ornament Countdown, Christmas Ornaments, Homemade, How to, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Save your fortunes and make this holiday garland.
Save your fortunes and make this holiday garland.

Cheri: My boys and I try to keep a standing date on Saturdays. We like to go and have lunch at a Chinese Restaurant in the small town where we live. I keep the fortunes as a keepsake. This is one of my favorite projects to make with them.

Supplies:

Fortune Cookie Fortunes

Glue or tape

Gold marker

How to:

Color a line around the slips with gold marker to dress it up a bit, and then glue/tape the fortunes into a circle, (make sure the fortune is on the outside). Attach them together and you have a great chain for the Christmas tree. I plan on continuing the chain throughout the year. Merry Christmas!

Fortune Cookie Garland